PREVIOUSLY we have shown how Catholics were
elated over the readings in the Revised Version that undermined
Protestantism, and criticized the Revisers for wanton omissions.f435
We shall now show how they rejoiced that Catholic readings
rejected by the Reformers have been restored by the Revisers, and their
Catholic Bible vindicated.

A Catholic bishop says that the Revisers were not as Protestant as
the translators of 1611:

"It must be admitted that either the Revisers wished to withdraw
several important passages of the Holy Scripture from Protestants, or
that the latter, in their simplicity, have all along been imposed upon
by King James translators, who, either through ignorance or malice,
have inserted in the Authorized Version a number of paragraphs which
were never written by an apostle or other inspired writer."f436

"When we consider the scorn cast by the Reformers upon the
Vulgate, and their recurrence, in consequence, to the Greek, as the only
accurate standard, we cannot but rejoice at the silent triumph which
truth has at length gained over clamorous error. For, in fact, the
principal writers who have avenged the Vulgate, and obtained for it its
critical preeminence, are Protestants."f437

A Catholic Magazine claims Revision for Higher Criticism and
Catholicism:

"How bitter to them must be the sight of their Anglican bishops
sitting with Methodists, Baptists, and Unitarians to improve the English
Bible according to modern ideas of progressive Bible Criticism! Who gave
these men authority over the written Word of God? It was not Parliament
or Privy Council, but the Church of England acting through Convocation.
To whom do they look for the necessary sanction and approval of their
work, but to public opinion? One thing at least is certain, the Catholic
Church will gain by the new Revision both directly and indirectly."f438

A Catholic priest indicates that the changes agree with the Latin
Vulgate:

"It is very pleasant to read the commendation given by the
learned reviewer, the Very Revelation James A Corcoran, D.D., in the
American Catholic Quarterly Review, of the new Revision. He
devotes a considerable space to proving that the earlier English
translations corrupted the text, for the purpose of attacking the Roman
Catholic faith, and that even King James Version retained many of
these odious mistranslations. Of the Revision he says: One of the
greatest benefits conferred by the Revision on the English Protestant
world, though very few or none seem to realize it, is that all the
wicked translations, whether by falsification of meaning, or by
interpolation, or by foisting of glosses into the text, have been
ruthlessly swept away by the besom of the Revisers. And why? Solely on
the ground that they were corruptions. They do not explicitly say that
they were sectarian corruptions, nor need we insist on their saying it;
but they recognized them as such, and every honest man, every friend of
religious truth must be thankful that they have with unsparing hand
driven these unholy abominations out of the book of Gods revelation.
This proves that their honesty was wholesome, not partial or interested."f439

The above quotation shows the hostile attitude of Romanists to the
King James Version, and their endorsement of the Revision.

A Catholic Bishop says that Protestants have prayed the Lords
prayer wrong for 300 years:

"This writer (Dr. Alexander Roberts) notifies his readers in one
place, that, because the Revisers made use of an amended Greek text, a
vast multitude of changes will be found in the Revised English Version
of the New Testament. Next he reminds them of the entire omission of
the doxology of the Lords prayer of <400613>Matthew
6:13, so that all English speaking Protestants have been all along
adding to that prayer words which the Lord never dictated. Indeed, they
are likely to continue the practice, as the Revision of the Authorized
Version will probably never be generally adopted by them."f440

A Catholic priest says that the Revised Version confirms readings of
the Catholic Version:

"From the Very Revelation Thomas S. Preston, of St. Ann's (R.
C.) Church of New York, The brief examination which I have been
able to make of the Revised Version of the New Testament has convinced
me that the Committee have labored with great sincerity and diligence,
and that they have produced a translation much more correct than that
generally received among Protestants.

"It is to us a gratification to find that in very many
instances they have adopted the reading of the Catholic Version, and
have thus by their scholarship confirmed the correctness of our Bible."f441

A Catholic Magazine says that the Revised readings do justice to
Catholics:

"We have next to examine the new Version in detail to see how it
will affect Catholic truth. In the first place, there are several
important corrections and improved renderings. The Revisers have done an
act of justice to Catholics by restoring the true reading of <461127>1
Corinthians 11:27."f442

A Catholic Bishop considers that the Revised Version is like the
Douay Bible:

"And there is no reason to doubt that, had King James
translators generally followed the Douay Version, the convocation of
Canterbury would have been saved the trouble of inaugurating a movement
for the purpose of expurgating the English Protestant Bible of the
errors and corruptions by which its pages are filled."f443

French and German Catholic authorities approve the critical features
of the Greek text which underlies the Revised Version:

"In the Bulletin Critique of Paris for Jan. 15, 1881, the
learned Louis Duchesne opens the review of Westcott and Hort with these
words: Voici un livre destine a faire epoque dans la critique du
Nouveau-Testament. (Here is a book destined to create a new epoch in
New Testament criticism.) To this Catholic testimony from France may be
added German Catholic approval, since Dr. Hundhausen, of Mainz, in the
Literarischer Hand-weiser, 1882, No. 19, col. 590, declares:

Unter allen bisher auf dem Gebiete der neutestamentlichen
Textkritik erschienenen Werken gebuhrt dem Westcott-Hort-schen
unstreitig die Palme." (Among all printed works which have
appeared in the field of New Testament textual criticism, the palm
belongs unquestionably to the Westcott-Hort Text.)f444

A Catholic magazine claims that the Revised Version is the death
knell of Protestantism:

"On the 17th of May the English speaking world awoke to find
that its Revised Bible had banished the Heavenly Witnesses and put the
Devil in the Lords Prayer. Protests loud and deep went forth against
the insertion; against the omission, none. It is well, then, that the
Heavenly Witnesses should depart whence their testimony is no longer
received. The Jews have a legend that shortly before the destruction of
their Temple, the Shechinah departed from the Holy of Holies, and the
Sacred Voices were heard saying, Let us go hence. So perhaps it is
to be with the English Bible, the Temple of Protestantism. The going
forth of the Heavenly Witnesses is the sign of the beginning of the end.
Lord Panmure's prediction may yet prove true the New Version will
be the death knell of Protestantism."f445

THE AMERICAN REVISION COMMITTEE AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON
THE FUTURE OF AMERICA

AS THE influence of the Oxford Movement crossed the ocean and began
to spread in the United States, Dr. Hort could not refrain from writing
to Westcott:

"A most singular movement is taking place among the German Reformation
settled in America, the center of the Movement being Mercersburg. The
leading man is Dr. Nevin... I can compare him to no one but Newman, and
higher praise it would be difficult to give. I fear he is fast drifting
Romewards." Easter Eve, 1854.f451

So wrote from England one who knew. The "Mercersburg
Movement," or the "Mercersburg Theology," made a
revolutionary and permanent change in American Theological colleges and
American theology. Dr. Nevin, however, was not the American Newman. He
was only the forerunner. The outstanding leader, his associate, was Dr.
Philip Schaff, President of both American Committees of Revision, Old
and New Testament.

The following quotation will show, in an introductory way, how the
Mercersburg Movement stood related to American churches, to the Oxford
Movement, and to Dr. Schaff:

"The works of the Mercersburg professors are fraught with
dangerous tendencies. The Reformed Dutch Church has, by a public and
solemn act, withdrawn from ecclesiastical relations with the German
Reformed Church, her ancient ally, on account of her countenance of
those works and of their authors. The General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church (O.S.) has suspended her relations with that
denomination for the present year, and awaits further developments. This
painful step has, in both cases, been taken after much deliberation, and
with the calmness and dignity which befit a Christian Church...

"Romanism is known to have recently entered the Church of
England in the disguise of Oxford Tractarianism, to have drawn off no
inconsiderable number of her clergy and members, and to have gained a
footing on British soil, from which the government and public opinion
together are unable to eject her. The Mercersburg writers began with
decided commendation of the system which is called Puseyism. Their own
course has thus far strongly resembled that which has marked its
history. Step by step they have advanced, till Romanism stands forth
almost unveiled in the Apostles Creed, Early Christianity,
and Cyprian, of Dr. Nevin in the Mercersburg Review... Yet Dr.
Nevin and these very works are commended and endorsed by Dr. Schaff in
this History of the Apostolic Church, and that without caution or
reserve." f452

Before the part played by Dr. Schaff in contaminating American
theology is presented, the fundamental doctrines which formed the issues
of the Mercersburg Movement, as well as the background of its birth,
must be considered. While on a visit to Germany in 1854, Dr. Schaff
lectured before several organizations, on Dr. Nevin and the Mercersburg
Movement. From a report of his remarks we quote the following:

"The Mystical Presence published in 1846, was his (Dr.
Nevins) first dogmatic-polemic work, a Vindication of the Mystical
Presence of Christ in the Lords Supper, and of the actual
participation of believers in the power of His divine-human life, in
opposition to the prevalent symbolical view in America, which sees in
this sacrament only a commemoration of the death of Christ now absent in
heaven...

"But the Movement did not stop here. Already in the Mystical
Presence, the idea of the Incarnation of Christ came to the front very
clearly, as the central truth of Christianity...

"In the same track with the more recent German theology, he (Dr.
Nevin) studied with the deepest interest the entire Puseyite
controversy, foremost the writings of Dr. John H. Newman, with whom he
had many points of resemblance, and read the works of the most important
Roman Catholic apologists and polemics, such as Bellarmine, Bossuet,
Mohler, Wiseman, and Balmes, who of course represent their system of
faith in a much more favorable light than their Protestant opponents,
and know how to idealize it, so that to a deep, earnest spirit it
becomes powerfully imposing.

"Dr. Nevin gave expression to his newly gained ideas in the Mercersburg
Review, established by his pupils, edited by him, and read
extensively beyond the Reformed Church, more particularly in the
Episcopal. He there developed, in a series of essays and reviews, full
of life and spirit, and always going back to fundamental principles, the
doctrine of the Person of Christ."f453

It was in 1844 that Dr. Schaff, still a young man, arrived from
Germany to assume his duties as Professor of Church History and Biblical
Literature in the Theological Seminary of Mercersburg, Pa. He was just
at the beginning of his theological career in the University of Berlin,
and was, says Dr. Appel, "a gift from the Fatherland to the
daughter Church on this side of the ocean, and, we may add, to the
country at large, destined to serve as an important link connecting the
theological science of this country with that of Germany."f454
He came determined to use as his chief argument, the theory of
historical development which, in the hands of the Catholic Mohler, had
struck in Germany and everywhere, strong blows at Protestantism and
brought about the reinstatement of the Catholic Church to a position of
leadership.

On the eve of his leaving Germany, many Protestant leaders of the new
German theology rejoiced with Dr. Schaff over his call to America. Among
others who wrote to him, was Dr. Dorner, whose work on the Atonement has
ever attracted so much attention. Of Dorner, Andrew Lang wrote in the Forum:

"Dorner's position, however, notwithstanding his protest, is
simply the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory somewhat
rationalized."f455

"Especially do I ask you to give attention to the Trinitarian
and Christological controversies and the development of the theory of
the Atonement."f456

On his way to the United States, Dr. Schaff spent some time in
England, visiting. He met Drs. Jelf, Stanley, Pusey, Maurice, and Jowett.
He described Maurice as of a German temper of mind, and said of Jowett
that he seemed to have more sympathy with German theological views than
anyone else he met there. Pusey spoke strongly against the sect
divisions in America, "expressing the wish that the bishops of the
Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church alone had the
ground."f457

On his arrival in this country, and at his inauguration into the
office which he accepted within the German Reformed Church, Schaff made
an address entitled, "The Principles of Protestantism." His
speech was so revolutionary that, as soon as it was translated into
English and circulated, it produced a storm of criticism. It brought
forth charges of Romanizing and Tractarian tendencies. "The address
involved the church irreversibly in the doctrinal agitation which went
on within its pale for a quarter of a century."f458

Some attribute to this address the opening note of the Mercersburg
Movement. Others say it began with the tract written in the preceding
year by Dr. Nevin, entitled, "The Anxious Bench." This tract
was a terrific denunciation of the system of revivals held in the
evangelical churches and pointed out the Sacramental System as a refuge
from fanaticism.

Nevertheless the inaugural address of Dr. Schaff resulted in his
being tried for heresy. He was formally acquitted; so he and Dr. Nevin
went back to the Theological Seminary to vindicate themselves and
promote their views among the rising generation.

Dr. Berg, pastor of the First German Reformed Church of Philadelphia,
bore the brunt of opposing the Catholic tide which evidently now had set
in, in America, as it had before in Germany and England. From a
converted Catholic priest he had heard that the professors of
Mercersburg were insidiously instilling Romanizing poison in their
classroom teachings. He tried several times to bring about a change, but
finding the Synod obdurate, he went over to the Dutch Reformed Church,
taking with him the larger part of his congregation.

The time spent by Dr. Schaff at Mercersburg was approximately twenty
years. "The Mercersburg period of Dr. Schaff's career," says
his son, "coincided with the rise and development of the
Mercersburg theology." In 1864 he removed to New York, and for six
years was connected with the New York Sabbath Committee, whose aim, says
his son, "was not to defend the Sabbath as a religious festival,
but as an institution recognized by civil legislation." During this
time he traveled all over the United States, north and south, seeking by
documents, by editorials, and from the pulpit and platform, to enforce
Sunday Laws.

In 1870, Dr. Schaff connected with the Union Theological Seminary
where he taught for over a quarter of a century. It must not be thought,
however, that his revolutionary influence upon American theology was
limited to his stay at Mercersburg. In his later writings and
correspondence, we find those peculiar doctrines which certain German
theologians expected him to promote in the United States, and which he
urged, at times with insistence, upon the Revision Committee.

Dr. Schaff's teachings endorse the papal hierarchy of the Middle
Ages. He magnifies the priesthood until "its ministers have more
than earthly power; its sacraments have inherent objective
efficiency."f459 Dr. Schaffs
conception of theology rests upon the doctrine of historical
development.

In his life's work, called "The History of the Apostolic
Church," begun in 1853, may be found his scheme of doctrines. His
theories in this book were so startling that several of Americas
leading theological reviews denounced them as anti-Scriptural, and
anti-Protestant. In classifying the sources of history, he puts in first
rank the "official letters, decrees, and bulls of Popes,"
pronouncing them "pure, original utterances of history."f460

"Through the misty drapery of Dr. Schaff's philosophy, every
essential feature of the papal system stands forth with a prominence so
sharply defined, as to leave doubt impossible, and charity in
despair," said one Reviewer.f461

The following quotations from contemporary writers of standing
present the danger of Schaff's teachings:

"It is quite time that the churches of our country should awake
to the extent and tendencies of this movement in the midst of American
Protestantism. After a series of advances and retractations, strongly
resembling the tactics of the Tractarian party in England, we have at
length a bold avowal of the primacy of Peter, the fundamental and
test doctrine of the Papacy, followed by a concession of every vital
point of Christianity Church, Ministry, Worship, Sacraments, and the
Right of Private Judgment to Romanism, and that too, while the name
and the forms of Protestantism are (as far as possible) studiously
retained. f462

Remember, these are not the teachings of a Catholic, but of the great
modern leader in American theology, President of both American Revision
Committees which produced the American Standard Revised Version. One of
his tendencies is described as follows:

"The first of these which we shall mention is the primacy of
Peter, which Dr. Schaff pronounces a subject of vast importance,
and justly observes that the claims of the Papacy are well known to
center here. Dr. Schaff fully asserts the primacy of Peter, and
devotes about thirty pages of his work to the proof of it, and the
exposition of its relations to the Christian church and its
history."f463

We shall now see that Dr. Schaffs anti-Scriptural doctrine of the
"Person of Christ," modifies all doctrines and destroys
Inspiration:

"As the conception of Christianity as a principle or life, the
divinehuman life of Christ, leads to unscriptural views of His person;
modifies essentially the scheme of redemption, and the mode of its
application; involves the theory of organic development, with all its
consequences; so, finally, it includes a new and thoroughly
anti-Protestant view of the Church."f464

Or, as this writer says in another place on Dr. Schaff's conception
of Christ:

"It involves the doctrine of organic development, which
overturns all the established views of the nature of revelation and of
Christian doctrine. Revelation can no longer be understood as the
supernatural objective communication of divine truths, but the elevation
of human nature to a higher state, by which its intuitions of spiritual
objects become more distinct."f465

What an indictment of this modern doctrine of the Person of Christ!
This teaching transfers the revelation of God from the Bible to the
feelings, emotions, intuitions, and human judgment of the individual. It
places a church composed of such individuals above the written Word of
God. May we not here direct the readers attention to this startling
truth, that rejecting the infallibility and inspiration of the Bible
leads to seeking refuge in another infallibility. Among Hindus and
others, this is the infallibility of the individual; among the Papists,
it comes to the infallibility of the Church.

We further quote, from a monthly magazine of standing, to show that
Dr. Schaff's system of doctrines is truly papal, and that he was
disloyal to the faith he professed:

"The Church of Rome has committed it (treason). She has denied
the sovereignty of her Lord, and appropriated His royal attributes to
Peter, in order, from that shadowy source, to derive them, by her
fictitious succession, to herself. She alone, of all the nominal
churches of Christ, has done this, and a heavy reckoning she will have
for it.

"Dr. Schaff has taken his position in this system so boldly and
distinctly, that he quite spares us the invidious office of giving him
or his theory an odious name...

"He has determined, too, to write a history of the Christian
church on this system. He has thus laid the foundation of it. We
shall have occasion to see hereafter that he carries up the whole
building plumb and true to the ground-plan, and after the pattern
showed him by the most approved masters of papal churchbuilding."
f466

"That such a work should have proceeded from the bosom of the
Protestant church, and from a chair of ecclesiastical history in a
church especially renowned of old for its learned and powerful champions
of reformed Christianity, is a portentous fact. It is, to say the least,
not less so, that it has somehow gained the strongest testimonials from
several of the most respectable and influential Protestant journals. The
Papacy has never won a victory but by stealing a march. Her
tactics have fairly been successful this time. This book is circulating
through the Protestant church with an imprimatur from authorities which
no American Protestant has been in the habit of questioning. One of them
goes so far as to recommend that Dr. Schaff's book (then only
published in German) be translated and introduced as a textbook into our
theological seminaries. It would be well, as a preparatory measure, in
case that were done, to apply to the General of the order of Jesus
to send us over professors to teach it. Our Protestant professors would
(till properly initiated and trained) betray some awkwardness in laying
down the primacy of Peter as the foundation of the church of Christ,
drawing the waters of history from such sources as bulls of the Popes,
and weaving together beautiful legends and oral traditions into an
osier-work of church history, instead of piling up, as heretofore, the
solid granite of historical fact, and the pure marble of Christian
doctrine. Our students of divinity, too, for whose benefit Dr.
Schaff's work is especially intended, would be sorely puzzled when set
to learn beautiful legends by heart, to search among bulls of
the Popes for doctrine and government, and to take, for the
first lesson in Church History, the Primacy of Peter. A sad change
must come over our Theological Schools when this broad road leading
Rome-ward is substituted for the old path."f467

It may be urged that Dr. Schaff at times spoke against the Papacy.
This point is noticed by the following writer:

"It is quite true that Dr. Schaff has said some hard things of
the Papacy. He speaks of the extravagant claims, the deadly
coils of the Papacy. But we have not yet forgotten that Mr. Newman
pronounced the Roman Church impious, blasphemous, gross,
monstrous, governed by the Evil One, bound by a perpetual
bond and covenant to the cause of Antichrist, which we ought to
flee as a pestilence. Yet a short time after, beheld him at the feet
of a Romish priest, exclaiming, I ask your blessing, and withdrawing
before the world these expressions and the arguments derived from
them. His peace was easily made... Dr. Schaff has said, also,
handsome things of Protestantism. He has used Protestant phrases, and
made Protestant observations not a few. If Dr. Schaff had written a
book of unmixed Romanism, it would have found few readers in this
country. f468

THE AMERICAN REVISION COMMITTEE

As in England, so in America, two Companies were formed for Revision,
one for the Old Testament, one for the New. Bishop Ellicott and Dr.
Angus of the English Revision Committee requested Dr. Schaff to take the
initiative and a leading part. In consultation with them he selected the
American members. The Episcopalians, having declined to nominate members
from their body, Dr. Schaff filled out the list. He drew up the
provisional draft of the Constitution, made arrangements for the
organization and first meeting. During the fourteen years of their
labors, Dr. Schaff was the life and soul of the work. He often traveled
to England, meeting with Ellicott, Westcott, Hort, and others to smooth
out difficulties and save the day in delicate situations. "For the
American share in the work," says Dr. T. W. Chambers, a member of
the American Old Testament Committee, "the Christian public is
indebted to Philip Schaff more than to all others persons
together."f469

The American Committees entered upon their work prejudiced in favor
of the Vulgate. They considered the Bible of the Papacy more accurate
than the King James. "But the text which the Protestants
used," said the final editor of the American Version, "was in
many cases, it is now acknowledged, less accurate than that represented
by the Vulgate."f470

This attitude of mind certainly would be one desired by Catholics. We
have evidence that Dr. Schaff felt at liberty to read his Roman
prepossessions into the Sacred Text. In his Church History he translated
that famous passage in <401618>Matthew
16:18, more in favor of Peter being the first Pope than even papal
writers, thus: "Thou art a rock, and upon this rock I will build my
church." One writer, reviewing his "Church History,"
said, "Dr. Schaff has laid his hand on the text itself. With
unparalleled audacity he has translated <401618>Matthew
16:18, thou art a rock, and on this rock, etc., as if
Peter and the rock were expressed in the original by the
same word. Bellarmine has not ventured to do this, nor any other
Romanist within our knowledge."f471 Could
one who had such papal leanings and who dared to mistranslate the
Scripture in his own history, be considered safe as a leader in
translating all of the rest?

The sacerdotal leaning of Dr. Schaff can be further seen from the
fact that the American Committee changed, at his personal insistence,
the rendering of the English Revision Committee of <442028>Acts
20:28, from "overseers" to "bishops." The report of
this incident, by his son, we give in full: "The final Revision,
Paul's address to the elders, <442028>Acts
20:28, as it came from England in 1879, contained overseers in
the text and bishops in the margin. In Dr. Schaffs own copy he
has written on the margin Bishops in the text in all passages, and
overseers in the margin (moved by Schaff and adopted unanimously April
30, 1880). The discussion was long. The printed copies of the
Revision, it will be seen, contain the American change and read:

Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in the which the
Holy Ghost hath made you bishops."f472

Dr. Schaff was on such good terms with the Papacy that he sought and
obtained unusual privileges to study Vatican documents. His biographer
writes: "Through Cardinal Hergenrother, the Cardinal librarian, he
received almost unrestricted access to the Vatican Library and Archives.
The latter is a distinct department, containing the papal
correspondence, encyclicals, regesta, and other documents pertaining to
the curia."f473

What Greek text was followed in the American New Testament Revision
Committee, may be gathered from the report given by Dr. Schaff of his
visit to the home of Bishop Westcott, Durham, England, 1869. He said,

Dr. Riddle tells us that in discussing the readings of the Greek New
Testament to be adopted, that, "while in the vast majority of cases
the preferences of the English Revisers were approved, this was due to
independent judgment."f475

Dr. Riddle further informs us that the Versions, English and
American, are in substantial agreement.f476

While time does not permit to study theologically the individual
members of these two committees, it is evident that Dr. Schaff carried
into the committees, the atmosphere of his doctrines and European
contacts. All the serious changes in the English Revised, which so
greatly aroused public hostility, also appear in the American Revised.
In the New Testament Company, in which the most critical questions came
up, Dr. Ezra Abbott was accounted the most competent in problems of
textual criticism. He was a Unitarian. As a Unitarian he differed on
some points from his fellow Revisers. Of him Dr. Riddle writes,
"Dr. Ezra Abbott presented a very able paper on the last clause of <450905>Romans
9:5, arguing that it was a doxology to God, and not to be referred to
Christ."f477

He succeeded in getting his view into the margin. In the article by
Dr. Abbott on Bible Texts, in Schaff-Herzogs Encyclopedia, he claims
that the early church was not so bent, as those of this generation, upon
preserving the exact words of the original autographs of the apostles.
Who will believe that those who lived nearest the apostles cared less
for the sacred writings than we do now? To make such an arbitrary
and in the very nature of things, unreasonable statement indicates
too low an estimate of the sacred words for us to trust him as a
qualified Reviser. Unitarians and Romanizers may serve to revise the
Bible for others, but not for evangelical Protestants.

Thirteen colleges and universities located along the Atlantic
seaboard had members of their faculties on these two Revision
Committees. What the result has been of linking Americas educational
institutions with European theology, which Dr. Schaff set out to do, may
be seen in the letter written him by the famous Dr. Weiss of the Berlin
University. He says:

"If to-day the famous theological seminaries in the United
States have become nurseries of theological science, so that the old
world no longer gives to them alone, but receives from them instruction
in turn, this is owing chiefly to your activity."f478

If the influence of Dr. Schaffs scheme was so revolutionary upon
all the theological seminaries of the United States, what must have been
his influence and that of his Revision activities upon the American
Revised Version? Will not this explain the peculiar acceptability of the
American Revised Version to those who lean toward advanced and liberal
theology?

Cardinal Newman and Dr. Schaff drank their inspiration from the same
fountain, from the higher critical theology of Germany, at the
same time both pagan and papal. As to the results of Newmans life and
the Oxford Movement, let a quarterly Review testify:

"He (Newman) had left the leprosy of Popery cleaving to the very
walls of Oxford, to infect the youth of England, through an unknown
future."f479

As to the effect of Dr. Schaff, the Mercersburg theology, and his
doctrines, let the same witness testify again:

"Our examination has extended only to a little beyond the middle
of Dr. Schaff's work (i.e. his History of the Apostolic Church). But
the positions he has already advanced, are such as to lay the whole
truth and grace of God, and the whole liberty, hope, and salvation of
the human race, at the feet of the Roman Papacy."f480

Under such influences were born the English and American Revised
Versions.

"The Revisers had a wonderful opportunity. They might have made
a few changes and removed a few archaic expressions, and made the
Authorized Version the most acceptable and beautiful and wonderful book
of all time to come. But they wished ruthlessly to meddle. Some of them
wanted to change doctrine. Some of them did not know good English
literature when they saw it... There were enough modernists among the
Revisers to change the words of Scripture itself so as to throw doubt on
the Scripture." Herald and Presbyter (Presbyterian), July 16,
1924, p. 10.

BECAUSE of the changes which came about in the
nineteenth century, there arose a new type of Protestantism and a new
version of the Protestant Bible. This new kind of Protestantism was
hostile to the fundamental doctrines of the Reformation. Previous to
this there had been only two types of Bibles in the world, the
Protestant, and the Catholic. Now Protestants were asked to choose
between the true Protestant Bible and one which reproduced readings
rejected by the Reformers.

A NEW PROTESTANTISM WHICH IS NOT PROTESTANT

The new Protestantism arose from the new doctrine concerning the
Person of Christ. The deep love of all Christians for Christ makes them
ready listeners to any teachings which seem to exalt Jesus and increase
the glory of Christ. For this reason Protestants easily fell in with the
new doctrines concerning Christ which were entirely different from those
held by the Reformers. The new Protestantism rejected the sole authority
of the Scriptures. They held that the church was instinct with a
mysterious life which they called the Person of Christ.

They taught that this life came into all humanity when Jesus was
manifest in the flesh; not simply the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth, but in
the flesh of all humanity. They held that this life was progressive, and
therefore, from time to time, it led the church to new doctrines. The
Bible was secondary. This life was communicated through the sacraments,
and the participants in the sacraments graduated from one experience to
a higher experience. So Christ had two bodies, His own body in which
divinity and humanity were united, and His "theanthropic" life
common to all believers, which life constituted the body of the church,
or Christ's second body.

This new Protestantism captured most of the Church of England,
permeated other Protestant denominations in Great Britain, and flooded
the theological seminaries of America. One college professor, alarmed at
the atmosphere of paganism which had come into American universities and
denominational colleges, investigated them and reported that
"ninety per cent or more teach a false religion as well as a false
science and a false philosophy."f481

False science teaches the origin of the universe by organic
development without God, and calls it evolution. German philosophy early
taught the development of humanity through the self-evolution of the
absolute spirit. The outstanding advocates of this latter philosophy,
Schelling and Hegel, were admitted pantheists.f482
Their theory was applied to theology in the hands of
Schleiermacher whose follower was Dr. Schaff, and whom Dr. Schaff
characterizes as "the greatest theological genius" since the
Reformation. He also said, "There is not to be found now a single
theologian of importance, in whom the influence of his great mind is not
more or less to be traced."f483 The
basis of Schleiermachers philosophy and theology was acknowledged by
such men as Dorner to be "thoroughly pantheistic."f484

One definition of pantheism is the belief that "the totality of
the universe is God." God is in the grass, the trees, the stones,
earth, man, and in all. Pantheism confounds God with matter. Gnosticism
is essentially pantheistic. "Dr. Schaff says there is a
pantheistic feature which runs through the whole system of
Popery."f485 Both Gnosticism
and Pantheism are at war with the first verse of the Bible which reads,
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." This
verse places God before matter, makes Him the Creator of matter, and
hence apart and distinguished from the material universe.

Modernism, or the new Protestantism, is essentially pantheistic and
therefore anti-Scriptural and anti-Protestant. Schaff says that by
following this new theology, modern evangelical Germany is as widely
separated from the Reformation as the Reformation was from Roman
Catholicism.

The Reformers taught that every child of God is in immediate contact
with Christ and grows in grace and the knowledge of God through the Word
and through the Spirit. The new theology taught that Christianity was
not "a system of truth divinely revealed, recorded in the
Scriptures in a definite and complete form for all ages," but that
Christianity is Christ. The church is the development of Christ very
much as in this false philosophy, the universe is the development of
God.

This, of course, is pantheistic, though perhaps all who profess this
teaching are not avowed pantheists. The new theology changed the
Protestant conception of Christ; then very naturally it changed all the
fundamental doctrines and consequently made the Bible secondary as the
fountain of faith, while nominally giving the Bible its customary
usages. However, like the Gnostics of old, this new theology would not
scruple to change sacred passages to support their theology.

THE GLORIFICATION OF THE VATICANUS AND SINAITICUS

Why was it that at so late a date as 1870 the Vatican and Sinaitic
Manuscripts were brought forth and exalted to a place of supreme
dictatorship in the work of revising the King James Bible? Especially
when shocking corruptions of these documents betray a "systematic
depravation"? On this Dean Burgon says: "The impurity of the
texts exhibited by Codices B and (#) [Aleph] is not a matter of opinion,
but a matter of fact. These are two of the least trustworthy documents
in existence... Codices B and (#) [Aleph] are, demonstrably, nothing
else but specimens of the depraved class thus characterized." f486

Dr. Salmon declares that Burgon "had probably handled and
collated very many more MSS, than either Westcott or Hort" and
"was well entitled to rank as an expert."f487
Nevertheless, there has been a widespread effort to belittle Dean
Burgon in his unanswerable indictment of the work of Revision. All
assailants of the Received Text or their sympathizers feel so keenly the
powerful exposures made by Dean Burgon that generally they labor to
minimize his arguments.

Concerning the depravations of Codex (#) [Aleph], we have the further
testimony of Dr. Scrivener. In 1864 he published "A Full Collation
of the Codex Sinaiticus." In the Introductions he makes it clear
that this document was corrected by ten different scribes "at
different periods." He tells of "the occurrence of so many
different styles of handwriting, apparently due to penmen removed from
each other by centuries, which deform by their corrections every page of
this venerable-looking document." Codex (#) [Aleph) is
"covered with such alterations, brought in by at least ten
different revisers, some of them systematically spread over every
page."

Each of these manuscripts was made from the finest skins and was of
rare beauty. "The Codex Sinaiticus of the fourth century is made of
the finest skins of antelopes, the leaves being so large, that a single
animal would furnish only two... Its contemporary, the farfamed Codex
Vaticanus, challenges universal admiration for the beauty of its
vellum."f488

Evidently these manuscripts had back of them royal gold. They were
reasonably suspected to be two of the fifty Greek Bibles which the
Emperor Constantine ordered at his own expense. Why should ten different
scribes, through the centuries have spread their corrections
systematically over every page of the beautiful Sinaiticus? Evidently no
owner of so costly a document would have permitted such disfigurements
unless he considered the original Greek was not genuine and needed
correcting.

As the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are evidently the product of
Gnosticism, what would be more natural than that the Catholicism of
Cardinal Newman and the Gnosticism of his followers, who now flood the
Protestant churches, would seek, by every means possible, to reinstate
in leadership, Gnosticisms old title-papers, the Vaticanus and
Sinaiticus?

THE GNOSTICISM OF THE REVISERS

Cardinal Newman believed that tradition and the Catholic Church were
above the Bible. Westcott and Hort, great admirers of Newman, were on
the Revision Committee in strong leadership. Dean Stanley believed that
the Word of God did not dwell in the Bible alone, but that it dwelt in
the sacred books of other religions as well.f489

Dr Schaff sat in the Parliament of Religions at the Chicago Worlds
Fair, 1893, and was so happy among the Buddhists, Confucianists,
Shintoists, and other world religions that he said he would be willing
to die among them.f490 The spirit
of the Revisionists on both sides of the ocean was an effort to find the
Word of God by the study of comparative religions.f491
This is the spirit of Gnosticism; it is not true faith in the
inspiration and infallibility of the Bible.

MODERN BIBLES

How far the new theology has been adopted by the editors of the many
different kinds of modern Bibles, is a question space does not permit us
to pursue. In the main, all these new editions conform to the modern
rules of textual criticism. We have already mentioned Fenton, Goodspeed,
Moffatt, Moulton, Noyes, Rotherham, Weymouth, Twentieth Century, the
Polychrome, and the Shorter Bible. To these the names of others might be
added. The Fenton Farrar translation opens thus in Genesis, first
chapter:

"By periods God created that which produced the Solar Systems;
then that which produced the Earth... This was the close and the dawn of
the first age."

Here is plenty of scope for evolution, Gnosticism, and the aeon
theory.

The latest sensation is "A New Commentary," by Bishop Gore
(formerly of Oxford, and a descendant of the Tractarians), and others.
According to this publication David did not kill Goliath, Noah never had
an ark, Jonah was not swallowed by a whale, the longevity of Methuselah
was an impossibility, and certain Gospel miracles are regarded with
skepticism.

"Every theological seminary of standing in this country, we are
told," says one of the most widely read weeklies of America,
"has been teaching for a quarter of a century almost everything
contained in the new Commentary."f492

Under these circumstances, how can these theological seminaries
regard the Hebrew and the Greek of the Bible as dependable or attach to
them any degree of inspiration?

When Doctors Westcott and Hort called "vile" and
"villainous" the Received Text which, by the providence of
God, was accounted an authority for 1800 years, they opened wide the
door for individual and religious sects to bring forth new Bibles,
solely upon their own authority.

It will be necessary to cite only two texts to show why the
Protestants cannot use the Douay or Catholic Version in its present
condition. <010315>Genesis
3:15 reads: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and thy
seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait
for her heel."

This rendering opens the way to exalt the Virgin Mary as a redeemer
instead of her divine Seed. <581121>Hebrews
11:21 reads: "By faith Jacob dying, blessed each of the sons of
Joseph, and adored the top of his rod."

What is this, if it is not image worship? One has only to read the 13th
chapter of Daniel in the Douay, a chapter which does not exist in the
King James, to be shocked at one of the corruptions of the Word of God,
which the martyrs rejected. What becomes, then, of the statement that
all versions are good, and that all versions contain the true, saving
Word of God? The numerous modern Bibles, translated from the Westcott
and Hort text, or from one built on similar principles, are no better in
many respects than the Douay.

Will not God hold us responsible for light and knowledge concerning
His Word? Can we escape His condemnation, if we choose to exalt any
version containing proved corruptions? Shall we not rather, avoid
putting these versions on a level with Gods true Bible?

And what is the practical result of this tide of modernism which has
largely engulfed England and is sweeping the theological schools and
popular Protestant churches in America? It renders such a missionary
useless in the foreign field. He will find that the heathen have been in
possession of a philosophy like his for 3,000 years. He is no more
certain of his ground than they are. It is sad to see the heathen world
deprived of the Bread of Life because of modernism.

Uniformity in expressing the sacred language of the one God is highly
essential. It would be confusion, not order, if we did not maintain
uniformity of Bible language in our church services, in our colleges and
in the memory work of our children. "For God is not the author of
confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints." <461433>1
Corinthians 14:33. It is not those who truly love the Word of God,
who wish to multiply various versions, which they design shall be
authorized for congregational use or exalted as authority for doctrine.
Let the many versions be used as reference books, or books for study,
but let us have a uniform standard version.

NOTE: How revolutionary have been the effects
of that movement in England which embraced Ritualism and Revision, let
the following statements from a book just off the press (1929), by H. L.
Stewart, entitled "A Century of Anglo-Catholicism," speak:

"Condemned or sanctioned, the Movement is now admittedly beyond
all stopping. What seemed chimerical a hundred years ago seems
irresistible to-day. Four bishops, out of forty-three, are still
definitely hostile."

"On the other hand, two thousand two hundred Anglican priests
have lately published their unalterable conviction about the Sacrament
in terms which no honest man can pretend to think different in any
essential respect from those of the Church of Rome."

Speaking of Reservation, the practice of consecrating the sacramental
elements some time in advance of the hour when they are to be used, and
of worshiping them, H. L. Stewart gives good authority to indicate over
800 churches and institutional chapels "where the sacramental
Elements were not only reserved but adored." And, "One finds
in Crockford's Clerical Directory for 1927, a forecast that ten
years of further decline like that of the ten just ended would wipe the
Church of England out of existence."

In referring to the Prayer Book controversy, which lately has
repeatedly convulsed England and which arose from the new Prayer Book so
arranged as to make a ritual like the Catholic legal in the Church of
England, this new volume says:

"Mr. Rosslyn Mitchell told the House of commons that if the
English clergy were armed with the Alternative Prayer Book, they could
make England Roman Catholic within a generation."

Speaking of the controversy in England between Higher Criticism and
belief in the Bible, he further says:

"Making its normal speed of progress, according to the rate at
which new thought travels westward, it has now reached America, to
divide the churches of the United States into Modernist and
Fundamentalist."

BARREN rock, mountain solitude, and lonely
wilderness have all contributed their brave sons to defend the Word of
God, and, if need be, to die that it might be kept unadulterated. He who
hath chosen the weak things of this world to confound the mighty, would
not permit man to be robbed of that simplicity of the divine Word which
made the untampered Scriptures a peculiar treasure.

The moral law within the heart is compelling. One great philosopher
felt this when he said, "There are two things in the universe which
awe me: the glory of the heavens above and the majesty of the moral law
within me." God did not leave mankind to struggle in ignorance with
the awful impressiveness of the law within, without revealing Himself in
His Word as the moral Governor of the universe. The supreme lessons of
the Bible only can reach the deeper feelings of the heart. The Bible is
the absolute standard of right and wrong. In the Word dwells spiritual
life the most perfect. Jesus said, "It is the Spirit that
quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto
you, they are spirit, and they are life."<430663>John
6:63.

The created worlds magnify the exalted name of the Eternal. But God
has magnified His Word above all these. It is an unhappy hour when
humanity lightly esteems the Bible; for there God reveals Himself more
than through the material universe. A man is no better than his word; if
one fails to command confidence, so does the other. Heaven and earth
shall pass away, but Gods Word shall never pass away.

In the Bible is revealed the standard by which we shall be tried when
the judgment day comes. From the garden of Eden until now, one standard
and one only has been revealed. Inspiration declares that this
revelation has been under the special protection of all power in heaven
and earth. "The words of the Lord are pure words," says the
Psalmist, "as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven
times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve every one of
them, (margin) from this generation forever."<191206>Psalm
12:6,7. Lonely mounds in distant lands mark the graves where fell
those who forsook home and civilization that the Word of God might live.

We believe in Jesus Christ as the divine Teacher, because unlike
Mohammed and others, He did not come unheralded. There were fifteen
hundred years of prophecy pointing forward to His coming among men. A
perfect transmission of these predictions was necessary if they were to
be fulfilled in every specification.

There is nothing which so stirs men to the holiest living as the
story of Jesus Christ. Yet only within the lids of the Bible is that
story found. At the cost of great sufferings, God yielded up His son.
The history of the ages which prepared for this holy event, and the
story of our Redeemers life are all found within the same volume.
These priceless records have been the object of Gods infinite
solicitude.

The divine Saviour and the holy apostles spoke beforehand of events
which would occur even to the end of time. Of what value would such a
prophetic revelation be, if it were not to guide those who would pass
through the predicted scenes, and if it were not to warn the wicked and
encourage the good? This value, however, would be destroyed if the words
foretelling the events, the meaning of the events, and the prediction of
rewards and punishments were so tampered with that the force of the
divine utterance was destroyed. Moreover the very fact that the Word
could make such a prediction not only stamps the Word as divine but
condemns as wicked, yes, points out as being the predicted apostasy,
that system which would either tamper with the Word, or make the Word
secondary. The writing of the Word of God by Inspiration is no greater
miracle than the miracle of its preservation.

The pathetic question of Pilate, "What is Truth," is not
more pathetic than the error of those who say that only by balancing one
version against another, or by examining the various manuscript
readings, those of apostates as well as those of the faithful,
can we arrive at approximate truth.

Left to ourselves we stumble through the darkness guided only by the
little lamp of reason. But when we accept the Bible, a great light
shines upon our path. History and prophecy unite to confirm our faith.
Daniel, and John, the apostle, point out the four great empires which
succeeded one another, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and pagan Rome.
After these arose a cruel, anti-Christian power, the Papacy, from whose
terrible persecutions the church fled into the wilderness. As Daniel and
John predicted, the Papacy trod underfoot the Truth, the Word of God.
From false manuscripts she issued a volume which she chose to call a
Bible, but added tradition and elevated it to a greater inspiration than
the Scriptures themselves.

Eating the bread of poverty and dressed in the garments of penury,
the church in the wilderness followed on to serve the Lord. She
possessed the untampered manuscripts of holy revelation which
discountenanced the claims of the Papacy. Among this little flock, stood
out prominently the Waldenses. Generation after generation of skilled
copyists handed down, unadulterated, the pure Word. Repeatedly their
glorious truth spread far among the nations. In terror, the Papacy
thundered at the monarchs of Europe to stamp out this heresy by the
sword of steel. In vain the popish battalions drenched the plains of
Europe with martyr blood. The word lived, unconquered.

Let Gilly tell us how the Waldenses survived the fury of the Papacy:

"They occupy a mountain district,... and yet from this secluded
spot, have they disseminated doctrines, whose influence is felt over the
most refined and civilized part of Europe. They... speak the same
language, have the same patriarchal habits, and simple virtues, and
retain the same religion, which was known to exist there more than a
thousand years ago. They profess to constitute the remains of the
pure and primitive Christian church, and those who would question their
claims cannot show either by history or tradition that they ever
subscribed to the popish rituals, or bowed before any of the idols of
the Roman Church... They have seldom been free from persecution, or
vexatious and intolerant oppression, and yet nothing could induce them
to conform, even outwardly, with the religion of the state... In short,
there is no other way of explaining the political, moral, and religious
phenomenon, which the Vaudois have continued to display for so many
centuries, than by ascribing it to the manifest interposition of
Providence, which has chosen in them the weak things of this
world to confound the things that are mighty."f493
(Italics Mine.)

The Redeemer said: "Thy word is truth." Rome, the Papacy,
did as the prophet Daniel wrote, she "cast down the truth to the
ground." While Rome was cruelly persecuting the church in the
wilderness, was she also the divinely appointed guardian of the true
Word of God? God placed the answer to this question in prophecy. And now
the Revised Version, built almost entirely on the Vatican Manuscript,
kept in the Popes library, and upon the Sinaiticus, found in a
Catholic monastery, (types of manuscripts upon which the Vulgate was
built), comes forward and proposes to set aside the text of our
Authorized Bible.

The Authorized Version was translated in 1611, just before the
Puritans departed from England, so that they carried it with them across
stormy seas to lay the foundation of one of the greatest governments the
world has ever known. The Authorized Version of Gods Holy Word had
much to do with the laying of the foundation of our great country.

When the Bible was translated in 1611, God foresaw the wide extended
use of the English language; and, therefore, in our Authorized Bible,
gave the best translation that has ever been made, not only in the
English language, but as many scholars say, ever made in any
language.

The original Scriptures were written by direct inspiration of God.
This can hardly be said of any translation. Nevertheless, when apostasy
had cast its dark shadow over the Western lands of opportunity, God
raised up the men of 1611. They were true Protestants. Many of their
friends and associates had already fallen before the sword of despotism
while witnessing for the Holy Word. And in a marvelous way God worked to
give us through them an English version from the genuine manuscripts. It
grew and soon exercised a mighty influence upon the whole world. But
this was an offense to the old systems of the past.

Then arose the pantheistic theology of Germany, the ritualistic
Oxford Movement of England, and the Romanizing Mercersburg theology of
America. Through the leaders, or associates of the leaders, in these
movements, revised versions were brought forth which raised again to
influence manuscripts and versions long discarded by the more simple,
more democratic bodies of Christianity, because of the bewildering
confusion which their uncertain message produced. Again the people of
God are called upon to face this subtile and insidious program.

It is difficult for them to expose the systematic depravation without
being misunderstood, and without being charged with attacking the
genuine, while seeking to expose the erroneous mixed with the genuine.
They recognize that these modern versions can be used as books of
reference even if they cannot be put on a level with the Received Text.

Paul said, in <441728>Acts
17:28, "As certain also of your own poets have said, For we are
also his offspring." Paul quoted good sayings from the pagan poets,
but did not use these Greek writers as authority. It is as unthinkable
to forbid excellent quotations from pagan and heathen scholars as it
would be to place their writings on a level with the pure Word of God.
Likewise, parts of modern versions edited by scholars may be used with
care in considering Bible verses from another angle. This fact, however,
is taken advantage of, to claim divine inspiration for all the rest, and
sow confusion among the churches of believers.

Through the Reformation, the Received Text was again given to the
Church. In the ages of twilight and gloom, the corrupt church did not
think enough of the corrupt Bible to give it circulation. Since the
Reformation, the Received Text, both in Hebrew and in Greek, has spread
abroad throughout the world. Wherever it is accurately translated,
regardless of whatever the language may be, it is as truly the Word of
God, as our own Authorized Bible.

Nevertheless, in a remarkable way, God has honored the King James
Version. It is the Bible of the 160,000,000 English speaking people,
whose tongue is spoken by more of the human race than any other. German
and Russian are each the languages of 100,000,000; while French is
spoken by 70,000,000. The King James Version has been translated into
many other languages. One writer claims 886. It is the Book of the human
race. It is the author of vastly more missionary enterprises than any
other version. It is Gods missionary Book.

We shall need the Lord Jesus in the hour of death, we shall need Him
in the morning of the resurrection. We should recognize our need of Him
now. We partake of Him, not through some ceremony, wherein a mysterious
life takes hold of us. When we receive by faith the written Word of God,
the good pleasure of the Lord is upon us, and we partake of Him. Through
this Word we receive the power of God, the same Word by which He upholds
all things, by which He swings the mighty worlds and suns through the
deeps of the stellar universe. This Word is able to save us and to keep
us forever. This Word shall conduct us to our Fathers throne on high.
"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the Word of our God
shall stand forever."

"The starry firmament on high,And all the glories of the sky,Yet shine not to thy praise, O Lord,So brightly as thy written Word.

"The hopes that holy Word supplies,Its truths divine and precepts wise,In each a heavenly beam I see,And every beam conducts to Thee.